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This summer’s $190 million production Star Trek Into Darkness has earned over $462 million worldwide; its international haul has exceeded expectations at $234 million, but domestically, its $228.5 million hasn’t matched the first film. Whereas the first two were shot in L.A., the next will be filmed in a more tax-friendly location. “We’re making it for what it should have been shot for last time if we had made it outside of L.A., which we would have done except that [director J.J. Abrams] didn’t want to,” says a studio source. “That was a $20 million issue.”

Similar is happening for Superman Vs. Batman. I don't think it'll make any difference - this isn't a big-budget-to-glorified-TV-movie downgrade like we got with Wrath of Khan.

Sound like the budget is basically going to be the same as STiD ($20 million less but saved by shooting in a different location). And they got to be saving some money with the new director too.

This is another indication that politicians in my home state (California) are idiots (as if there was any doubts before). They are driving away an industry that is globally associated with Hollywood/California. No wonder that despite some of highest taxes (income, property, consumption) in the country we still have yearly budget deficits.

It's not just the taxes that causes productions to move outside LA. The trade unions for actors and technical professionals also drive the costs up. Relocating production makes it easier for them to hire non-union crews, though at the risk of on-site pickets.

Not a shock at all. I'd expect the budget to shrink to no lower than Trek '09

The only real shock is that they shot both in LA considering how that isn't really the industry norm these days, cheaper to shoot elsewhere. Vancouver, Detroit, Philly, and Atlanta all have better rates than LA.

I guess, moving away from California, they'll have no choice but to change engineering - both the brewery guts of the ship (unless they go somewhere else with a brewery, of course!) and the NIF warp core.

I guess, moving away from California, they'll have no choice but to change engineering - both the brewery guts of the ship (unless they go somewhere else with a brewery, of course!) and the NIF warp core.

Good thing they had that refit at the end of ID.

Greenscreen...Greenscreen...Greenscreen! Damn it guys, you can have any engineering room you want!

Brewgineering is the one thing I can't get past with the new movies. The NIF Core in STID was a huge upstep.

Functionally speaking, they haven't. The thing is, what with the taxes in LA and the bloated and inefficient filmmaking industry in Hollywood, a lot of the budget of the past two movies didn't actually go into the movies themselves. Moving production out of LA lets them put the same amount of money on the screen while saving money overall.

Really, though, I think cutting the budget would be a good thing. With a tighter budget, the next film might have to focus less on spectacle and effects and more on character and story. I think the Abrams films have done pretty well overall with the characters, but the last one had some action scenes that went too far overboard and didn't really feel necessary. I wouldn't mind seeing that stuff dialed back some.

I wish they would film it in Sydney like ROTS. Then I could camp out and beg to be an extra.

But then you'd have to sign a secrecy agreement and wouldn't be able to tell us about it. Or publish any on-set pictures. Would you survive?

I don't know, I could have fun with that. "OMG! You should see the [redacted] and when you see it on the screen with [redacted]...you don't know how amazing this is. Gotta go, [redacted] jsut bought the extras lunch for all the hard work we did filming [redacted]"

We have unions in Canada, allied with their US counterparts in several cases, depending on specific disciplines. But that's not often considered cause for fiscal concern from the US production companies' perspective, apparently. And the VFX houses up here are as competent as anyone elsewhere on the planet.